Republican field in Michigan Senate race thins as party coalesces around former Rep. Mike Rogers

JOEY CAPPELLETTI, Associated Press

10 minutes ago

Former Rep. Mike Rogers, R-MI., speaks during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Sandy Pensler, a Detroit-area businessman, has withdrawn from the Republican Senate race in Michigan just ahead of the state primary and is backing former U.S. Congressman Mike Rogers for the party’s nomination.

Pensler made the announcement at Donald Trump’s rally in Grand Rapids on Saturday, after being called to the stage by the former president. Trump endorsed Rogers earlier this year and many in the party have come to rally behind Rogers, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years and chaired the House Intelligence Committee.

“We need control of the Senate,” Pensler said onstage. “A divided, ongoing primary effort will harm that chance.”

“President Trump endorsed Mike Rogers,” he added. “Tonight, I do the same.”

Pensler was seen as a dead heat, having lost the 2018 GOP Senate primary by more than 9 percentage points to incumbent U.S. Rep. John James, who went on to lose to incumbent Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

Stabenow announced she will retire next year, leaving one of the most competitive seats in the country vacant.

Now that Pensler has dropped his bid, Rogers’ only remaining high-profile opponent is Justin Amash, a former U.S. representative who left the GOP in 2019 after calling for the impeachment of Trump, then president. Amash represented Grand Rapids from 2011 to 2021.

Democrats have coalesced around Rep. Elissa Slotkin as their candidate. She will face actor Hill Harper in the Aug. 6 primary, but she has a huge financial advantage.

National Republicans had hoped Rogers would have an equally easy path to his party’s nomination. But the campaigns of former U.S. Reps. Amash and Peter Meijer, who ended his bid earlier this year, made his task somewhat more complicated.

Trump’s endorsement in March of Rogers — who has been critical of Trump in the past but then reversed his stance in the Senate elections — pushed many other GOP candidates out of the race.

Despite unrest within the Democratic Party over its position as a candidate on the ballot, the party has not lost a Senate race since 1994 and exceeded expectations in the recent Michigan elections.